Greece — A fire that broke out on the island of Skiathos yesterday morningravaged forestland and forced the evacuation of three villages and two hotelsbefore it was contained late last night as strong winds waned.

A few homes were damaged by the blaze, believed to have started near agarbage dumpster, but there were no injuries.

The head of the fire service, Andreas Kois, arrived on the island in theafternoon as the General Secretariat for Civil Protection declared a state ofemergency. After the blaze was contained, firemen remained on standby.

Fires were also reported to have broken out on Mt Pelion, which was ravagedby a huge blaze at the end of last month, as well as in Lamia, Amaliada andNafplion.

Meanwhile, the bodies of three seasonal firefighters who died in a huge blazeon Crete on Wednesday, were buried in state ceremonies. A fourth firefighter,who survived the fire, was transferred to an Athens hospital with serious burns.Two of the dead, Nikitas Koromilas, 34, and Iraklis Tzanakis, 40, died ofasphyxiation before they were burned, according to a coroner who identified themfrom dental records. Survivor Manolis Michalodimitrakis, 37, has burns on 55percent of his body.

A preliminary investigation was ordered into the circumstances surroundingthe seasonal workers expedition to the gorge near Rethymnon where the firestarted. The fire official who had been on duty on the day of the fire said hehad not ordered the workers to approach the gorge. But the president of thenational union of seasonal forest firefighters, Giorgos Pontikalis, wasunconvinced. Those who ordered those people to go down there should face upto their responsibilities, he said.

In Romania, where temperatures reached 104 degrees Friday, the Health Ministry said at least nine people had died since Monday due to heat.

In Austria, where highs had hovered around 95 degrees for days, the Health Ministry said three deaths Thursday were likely heat-related. Austrian media said at least five people had died from the heat, including an elderly woman who collapsed on a Vienna street Friday.

A 56-year-old woman collapsed and died in Zagreb, Croatia, of what doctors believed was a heat-related heart attack. Temperatures in the Balkan country reached about 104 Friday.

Elsewhere, authorities in Slovakia and Hungary distributed free water in some cities. In the eastern Hungarian town of Kiskunhalas, temperatures reached a record 107.4, according to the national weather center.

Greece’s Fire Service reported 115 fires Thursday, and firefighters struggled Friday to contain a blaze at an old army base near Athens, where temperatures reached 105.8. France, not affected by the heat wave, sent some firefighting planes to Greece to help out.

Heat also sparked forest fires in parts of Italy, Romania and Bulgaria, where a state of emergency was declared in the southern districts of Haskovo and Stara Zagora. Strong winds and high temperatures complicated efforts to contain the blazes and Bulgarian authorities called on army and police units for help.

The extreme heat and lack of rain was also a concern for farmers.

In Romania, an industry group estimated the agriculture sector had suffered more than $2 billion in damages due to severe drought. The government has declared a state of disaster in 34 out of 42 counties so far and is paying farmers some compensation.

In Austria, steady sunshine and lack of rain have taken a toll on grapes in Burgenland, one of the nation’s wine-growing regions.

“In the vineyards, there are first signs of ‘sunburn’ damage,” Franz Stefan Hautzinger, president of the region’s agriculture association, told the Austria Press Agency.

Also in Austria, an animal rights group called for a ban on horse-drawn carriages popular with tourists in the capital, Vienna, especially on particularly hot days.

Britain, meanwhile, was out of step with the continent, as more than a month’s worth of rain fell in some areas Friday.

Residents across southern England reported flooded neighborhoods, and London’s Underground closed subway lines and stations across the city because of flooding.

The worst blazes in Greece were reported near Aegio in the south, on theisland of Cephallonia and near the border with Macedonia and Albania.

Hundreds of people, including tourists, have been evacuated from areas atrisk from fires in the Peloponnese and Cephallonia.

At least two people died after being trapped in fires in Greece on Wednesday.

One of the biggest blazes, near the southern town of Aegio, destroyed homes in at least eight villages and forced the temporary closure of the highway linking Athens to the port of Patras.

Greece’s electricity grid has been close to breaking point as demand has soared. Searing temperatures have also evaporated rivers used to create hydro-electric power.

The authorities have urged people to limit their use of air conditioners toavoid putting a strain on electricity supplies.

Meanwhile in northern Europe, the UK has seen unseasonably heavy rainfall andsevere flooding.

South-East Europe’s heat and the UK’s wet weather have both been blamed onchanges in the jet stream – a seasonal band of air from the Atlantic that hastaken a more southerly path across Europe this year.

SUMMER 2006 In a ‘normal’ summer, the Atlantic jet stream directs areas of low pressure, which bring cloud and rain, to the north of the UK. High pressure systems over Europe and the Atlantic bring warm, settled conditions.Pressure chart: 29/6/06. Source: Met Office

SUMMER 2007 This summer, the jet stream is flowing further south, allowing low pressure systems to sweep straight over the centre of Britain. It is also pulling in warmer air from the sub-tropics and Africa, which is sweeping over south-eastern Europe. Pressure chart: 24/07/07. Source: Met Office

Greece — Firefighters were aided by the weather this weekendin their efforts to contain forest fires in northern, central Greece and Atticaas Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pledged yesterday to stop developersbuilding on any of the burned land.

A deer looks through the charred remains of the national forest on Mount Parnitha. It is thought that more than 100 deer were killed by the fire that swept through the forest last week. President Karolos Papoulias said that the fire on Parnitha and blazes in other parts of Greece were a cause for national mourning. All the forestland that has been burned has automatically been set aside for reforestation, said Karamanlis during a speech to New Democracy members in Ioannina, northwestern Greece. Wherever there was forest, there will be forest again. I say it and I mean it.

He emphasized that efforts would be made to restore the national park on Mount Parnitha in Attica, where more than 2,000 hectares of forest was burned last week.

The scar left by the fire in Parnitha is also a scar on our soul, said the prime minister.

The government has been heavily criticized for an apparent lack of organization in combating forest fires over the last few days.

Mr Karamanlis did not have one word to say about his and his governments responsibility, said PASOK spokesman Petros Efthymiou, who described the large fires on Parnitha and in Pelion as biblical catastrophes.

Karamanlis defended his administration by pointing to record temperaturesthat led to an unprecedented 300 fires breaking out in just over a week.

However, there are indications that an initial reluctance to use aircraft todrop water on the Parnitha fire, when it broke out in Dervenohoria, probably ledto the blaze spreading so rapidly.

Authorities attempted to stem the fire by land, fearing that dropping waterfrom the sky would damage electricity pylons in the area and lead to a blackoutin Athens.

Firefighters also claimed that fire protection zones had not been kept clearof deadwood.

Rainfall in northern and central Greece on Saturday helped put out many ofthe 50 fires burning over the weekend, including one in Halkidiki, asfirefighters contained the blazes in Pelion and Parnitha.

Indonesia — Palm oil companies are burning peat forests to clear land forplantations in Indonesia’s Riau province, despite government pledges to endforest fires, environment group Greenpeace said on Thursday.

Forest fires are an annual menace for Indonesia and the country’s neighbours,who have grown deeply frustrated at the apparent lack of success in curbing thedry-season blazes and vast smoke clouds, or haze, that smothers the region.

Apart from the health risks to millions of people and damage to theenvironment, the smoke also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, fuellingglobal warming.

The government has pledged to cut the number of fires by half. A 2004 lawprohibits plantation companies from using fires, or any other means that causeenvironmental damage, to clear or cultivate land.

Blazes have started flaring again since the end of June with the start of thedry season. Satellite images collected by the Forestry Ministry showed 124″hot spots” in Riau on Sumatra island last week, more than otherprovinces in the country.

Riau is just across the Strait of Malacca from Singapore and Malaysia.

“The endless cycle of forest fires and forest destruction in Indonesiamust now be seen as a global phenomenon because our country contributes a lot toclimate change,” Greenpeace Forest campaigner Hapsoro said in a statement.

“Beyond the frequent lip service and rhetoric coming from officialswhenever these fires flare up, the government must take bolder measures toprevent the problem from taking place,” he said.

“The government must strictly enforce laws against violators includingoil palm companies and plantations which deliberately start these fires as partof their land-clearing operations.”

Heavy rain and water bombings extinguished most of the latest fires duringthe weekend but the threat was far from over, Hapsoro said.

The group showed a video from a trip to the area, showing swathes of burntpeat forests with tiny patches still on fire.

Indonesia has a total forest area of more than 225 million acres (91 millionhectares), or about 10 percent of the world’s remaining tropical forest,according to Rainforestweb.org, a portal on rainforests (www.rainforestweb.org).

But the tropical Southeast Asian country — whose forests are a treasuretrove of plant and animal species including the endangered orangutans — hasalready lost an estimated 72 percent of its original frontier forest.

The country is now the world’s second-largest palm oil producer and has about5 million hectares planted with oil palm. The government aims to develop anadditional 2-3 million hectares by 2010.

The palm oil industry says it abides by government rules.

“The government has classified areas and has rules and we obey them. Itis not what people from outside think that we just come, clear land and burn,”Derom Bangun, executive chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil ProducersAssociation, told Reuters in an earlier interview.

A World Bank and British government sponsored report placed Indonesia as thethird largest greenhouse gas emitter, releasing two billion tonnes of carbondioxide each year because of deforestation and forest fires.

Indonesia has about 20 million hectares of peat forests and peat swamps. Whendrained or burnt, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide in the air.

In Romania, where temperatures reached about 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), the Health Ministry said at least nine people have died since Monday due to the heat wave.

In Austria, where highs in most parts of the Alpine country have hovered near or above 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) for days, the health ministry said the deaths of three people in the country’s south were likely to be heat-related.

A 56-year-old woman collapsed and died in downtown Zagreb, Croatia, of what doctors believed was a heat-related heart attack.

Temperatures in the Balkan country reached about 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

Elsewhere in the region, in parts of Slovakia and Hungary, authorities distributed free water in some cities.

In the eastern Hungarian town of Kiskunhalas temperatures reached a record 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 Fahrenheit), according to the country’s national weather centre.

Firefighters in Greece, where the country’s Fire Service reported 115 fires in a 24-hour period, struggled to contain a blaze at an old army base near the capital Athens, where temperatures reached 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 Fahrenheit).

France, where the weather is normal for this time of year, is lending a hand to firefighters in Greece. Two Canadair firefighting planes left for Greece and will return home on Sunday night.

The heat has also sparked forest fires in parts of Italy, Romania and Bulgaria, where a state of emergency has been declared in the southern districts of Haskovo and Stara Zagora.

BELGRADE – A heatwave that has roasted much of the Balkans for a week abated in the north on Wednesday but sizzled on in Greece and left scores of wildfires throughout the region.

An Ilyushin water bomber aircraft borrowed from Russia was doing its best to put out forest fires in Serbia, while Albania waited for whatever help it could get.

“We are waiting for answers to our requests for additional equipment, but unfortunately our neighbours are busy fighting their fires and they also need more equipment,” said Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha.

While Romania registered a welcome drop in temperatures, there was no respite for Greece, which suffered in 45 degrees Celsius heat (113 Fahrenheit). An elderly woman died from heatstroke, the second Greek victim in two days.

In Romania, three more heat-related deaths pushed the toll to 33 as temperatures reached an all-time high of 44.2 Celsius on Tuesday, Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu said.

Nicolaescu said the week-long heat was now abating.

Temperatures in Serbia dropped 10 degrees from the 40-plus of the past week but, as with its neighbours, forest fires and power-cuts kept the emergency services busy.

“All of our 618 foresters have been in the field day and night for the last six days, and another 2,500 employees are on standby. The response of the local population was, in spite of all appeals, very poor,” said Jesa Ercic of the Serbian forest service, coping with over 100 fires.

LANDMINES AND BATTERY HENS

In Greece’s Peloponnese region, fire was closing in on several villages, the fire brigade said. Fire forced closure of the road border between Croatia and Montenegro and in Albania to the south fires raged for a second day in three national parks.

Fires broke out in Bosnia near its mountain border with Croatia overlooking the Adriatic. The towns of Stolac and Trebinje declared emergencies. Fire-fighters had a narrow escape when landmines left over from the 1992-95 war exploded as they tackled a blaze near the eastern town of Visegrad.

“Power outages in Montenegro, Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia influenced operation of the electricity utility and three power units went down on Tuesday,” said Greek Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas.

“I am asking you to avoid using electrical appliances during peak hours for one more day,” he added.

In Hungary, winegrowers said the dry winter and early summer were playing havoc with their crop and the harvest would have to come in early. But brewers were enjoying healthy sales of beer. In Montenegro, the region’s youngest indepedent republic, on the Adriatic coast, police said fires were under control and posed no danger to inhabitants or tourists.

“It was dramatic yesterday due to a shortage of water and the remote area. The army and crop-dusting fleet helped us,” said official Zlatko Cirovic in the resort of Herceg Novi. (Additional reporting from Bucharest, Athens, Belgrade, Tirana, Budapest, Sarajevo)

IRVINE – A fire that chewed through 77 acres of dry vegetation in the hills northeast of Irvine is expected to be fully contained by 6 p.m. Saturday, officials said.

The blaze, burning south of the interchange between the two forks of Orange County’s eastern tollways, is believed to have been caused by a hot piece of metal that somehow ejected from the catalytic converter of a car.

The fire caused in one minor heat-related injury to a firefighter, and was 80 percent contained Saturday afternoon, said Ed Fleming, battalion chief for the Orange County Fire Authority.

The blaze broke out about 5:20 p.m. Sunday near the area where the Eastern Transportation Corridor’s two tollways — highways 241 and 261 — converge in unincorporated territory adjacent to Irvine and Orange, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.

Firefighters have halted the fire’s forward progression, and the fire was not expected to grow in size, Fleming said.

Pieces of a catalytic converter from a car on Highway 261 were recovered and are believed to have sparked the fire, Fleming said.

“The catalytic converter part of the muffler ejected a hot piece of metal and that’s what caused the fire,” he said.

Five fire engines, three hand crews and additional support apparatus and personnel were working Saturday to contain the blaze, according to Fleming.

Ironically, the blaze briefly threatened the Emergency Operations Center, which is staffed by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Some aircraft sprayed the land surrounding the dispatch center with fire retardant.

No evacuations were needed, and no homes were threatened.

Although both directions of both tollways remain open to traffic, the California Highway Patrol reports one lane of the 261 tollway is blocked by fire trucks.

Indonesia — It used to be malaria that gave people fevers in Indonesia’sremote, mosquito-infested peatlands.

Now it is carbon.

Investors around the world are dreaming of the billions the festeringcarbon-rich bogs could bring in as the world battles global warming.Peat bogs are the new black gold, some say. Science has long known thatIndonesia’s 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of dense, black tropical peatswamps, formed when trees, roots and leaves rot, are natural carbon stores,explained University of Nottingham peat expert Professor Jack Rieley.

“They are 50 to 60 percent carbon. Peat stores more carbon than all of theplanet’s vegetation combined,” he said.

Now the dots have been joined between peatlands and the massive amounts ofclimate change-related carbon emissions they release when burnt or drained toplant crops such as palm oil.

Peat is a potential gold-mine, said Marcel Silvius, Senior Program Manager ofWetlands International NGO.

“This science was not available before,” said Silvius, the co-authorof a November 2006 report that found Indonesia’s peatlands emit two billion tonsof carbon dioxide each year — more than the annual greenhouse gas emissions ofJapan or Germany.

Now, in a sudden reversal, keeping Indonesia’s forest cover intact is a hotinvestment ticket in a warming world, said Silvius.

“(The world’s peatlands) emit eight percent of global carbon dioxideemissions, equal to what all the Annex One (industrialized) countries need todecrease (under the Kyoto Protocol). Tens of billions could be invested toachieve this,” said Silvius.

Around $30.4 billion of carbon credits — representing 1.6 billion tons of CO2– were bought and sold last year in Europe by companies seekingto trade off business-related carbon emissions for emissions reductions achievedelsewhere.

Already, investors are knocking on doors in towns close to peat swamps, such asPalangkaraya, in Central Kalimantan.

Within the million hectares of the nearby ex-Mega Rice Project peatlands,Rieley’s scientists have been offered funding from Climate Care for treeplanting and fire-fighting. Shell Canada is bank- rolling NGO-led peatrehydration and the Dutch government has invested 5 million euros ($6.7 million)in dam-building.

“They are all coming to visit the same people in Palangkaraya,” saidDaniel Murdiyarso of the Bogor-based Centre for International Forestry Research.

“There’s so much interest – we are in the eye of the hurricane.”

DEFORESTATION FEVER

Emissions cuts from forest areas such as peatlands are not yet eligible fortrade, because they were excluded from the Kyoto Protocol’s first, 2008-2012,round. But many predict they will be in six months’ time, after the UN climatemeeting in Bali hears a report on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation (RED).

“It has to enter the agenda so that developing nations such as Indonesiacan benefit,” Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told Reuters.

“We are ready. We have a grand plan to identify and restore or conserve ourforest areas. We have also prepared the financial side of the deal,”he said.

Meanwhile, the voluntary market is “developing rapidly”, as investorshope carbon futures will evolve into tradable credits said Jorund Buen,the director of Point Carbon analysis group.

“Discussions on including avoided deforestation are among the most advancedwith regards to post-Kyoto commitments,” he said.

As home to 60 percent of the world’s threatened tropical peatlands, and amongthe world’s top three carbon emitters when peat emissions are added in,Indonesia is in the spotlight.

“While the details are still in the works, the ‘big story’ is becoming moreclear,” said Meine van Noordwijk, principal scientist for the WorldAgroforestry Centre.

“If this stays outside of the international discussions a huge opportunitywill be missed… If accepted in principle, this will become part of the2012-2017 international regime,” van Noordwijk, who is based in Indonesia,said.

However, speculators descending on Indonesia’s peat-towns are finding localsless up to speed on the intricacies of carbon trading and peatlands protection,said Murdiyarso.

“It’s not easily understood by people — the confusion is overwhelming. Thepapers here say, ‘Central Kalimantan is clearing upthe air of Canada’,” helaughed. “The publicity from the local media is appalling.”

PEOPLE VS. PEATLANDS?

While RED’s exact stakeholders are murky, its plan to help save the planet bymaking conservation profitable is likely to be nationally based, rather thanproject-based, and to involve governments, the private sector and NGOs, analystssay.

But stitching up peat swamp carbon deals without involving local communitiesrisks raising real tensions, said Jutta Kill of FERN, the Forests and theEuropean Union Resource Network.

“Because the focus is narrowly on keeping the carbon stored, the incentiveto police is increased,” she said from Britain. “In Uganda, peoplehave been shot at by forest rangers to defend carbon forestry projects.”

This kind of market-led carbon trading is not the only way to safeguard forestcarbon, she said.

“Northern countries could do a lot by not pushing deforestation through (expanding)palm oil and biodiesel (developments)”.

“It certainly is a big policy incoherence if one part of the climatediscussion is to reduce emissions from deforestation, and the other leads to anincentive to deforestation,” she said.

Whatever eventuates, if perennial peat land problems such as poverty and firesaren’t tackled, Indonesia’s forests could go up in smoke, taking carbon tradersdreams with them, Rieley said.

“A lot of things are supposed to happen at a high level. The problem is thelow level — how are you going to stop fires on the ground?”

“None of these schemes will work if the fires aren’t stopped,” he said.”You’ll not only lose your forest, you’ll lose your peat and its ability tofunction as a carbon store.”